State v. Fluhr

HARRIS, Justice

(dissenting).

There are three holdings in the majority opinion: (1) our opinion in State v. Reaves, 254 N.W.2d 488 (Iowa 1977), logically should be overruled in favor of its dissent (thus reinstating Sisco and Brainard); (2) this result was mandated by the legislature; and (3) the use of this written plea of guilty by the trial court was reversible error. I still subscribe to the views expressed by our majority opinion in Reaves . I do not think the legislature, by Iowa R.Crim.P. 8(2)(b), intended to codify the Reaves dissent. And I do not believe the trial court committed reversible error in the reliance here on a written plea of guilty. For these reasons I respectfully dissent.

I. Sisco, Brainard, and Reaves. No one can quarrel with the seriousness of pleading guilty to a crime. No rational person would want an accused to do so hastily or without the fullest possible understanding. Starting with these sound premises the majority chooses to overrule our Reaves decision. In doing so the majority is retracing a trail that should seem familiar. We have traveled it before. According to Santayana: “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” I would not willingly overrule State v. Reaves because I would not willingly repeat our past experience in guilty plea cases.

Under our decisions in State v. Sisco, 169 N.W.2d 542 (Iowa 1969), and Brainard v. State, 222 N.W.2d 711 (Iowa 1974), and their progeny, we imposed what amounted to a rigid courtroom litany for taking guilty pleas. We denied doing so in Brainard, 222 N.W.2d at 721 : “[W]e have emphasized and continue to do so that judges need not follow a ritual in making the necessary determinations for acceptance of guilty pleas . . ..” Nevertheless our experience clearly shows that we did in fact make a fetish over the form of the proceedings. In Reaves we set out an incomplete list of cases in which we had reviewed guilty pleas in the seven years and ten months following Sisco. 254 N.W.2d at 492-93 . Sixty-three cases were cited.

Establishing the defendant’s subjective understanding of the charge and his rights is a worthy goal of obvious importance. But our experience during those 63 cases convinced me that it is hopeless to pretend a judge can give the accused useful instructions in the detail demanded by Sisco and Brainard . The required litany became a trap for the judge and was wholly unrelated to the defendant’s real understanding. The right of a defendant, dissatisfied with the sentence imposed after plea, to have his plea set aside did not turn on his understanding. No claim of misunderstanding was necessary. All that had to be found was some flaw in the judge’s litany, some omission of one of the defendant’s rights, or of some legal element of the offense charged.

In Reaves we noted a certain irony in the rigidity of the requirement. It is debatable how much of this detailed information can be actually assimilated in a courtroom, especially by the one whose understanding is involved. Our tradition in Iowa, as old as statehood, has been to provide and rely upon an attorney for the accused. Counsel *870 has a better chance than the judge to give the necessary legal advice — outside the charged atmosphere of a courtroom.

There is another irony. The necessary cost of counsel for the accused comes high. A substantial part of that cost comes directly from public funds and citizens ultimately pay for all of it. They also pay the cost of operating courts, including everything incident to our review of the trial judge’s review of the legal information that counsel were paid to furnish initially.

It seems to me that all this expensive effort did not improve the quality of justice for the accused. The litany was an advantage to the accused in only one respect. It gave him the hope that the judge might omit some of the words so as to cause the guilty plea to be set aside. But if the detailed litany is needed in order for an accused to learn his rights there is something fundamentally wrong with our adversary system.

The heart of the Reaves opinion, now set aside by the majority opinion, was simple and modest enough. I think it was eminently fair: “Unless something causes, or reasonably should cause, the trial judge to believe otherwise he may rely on defense counsel’s assurances that an accused has been advised of, and is aware of, everything required by Sisco.” 254 N.W.2d at 493 .

Our Reaves holding still strikes me as just, sound, and logical.

II. The effect of rule 8(2)(b). The majority believes the Reaves dissent was mandated by Iowa R.Crim.P. 8(2)(b) and points to legislative history to support the claim. In the criminal code revision of 1976 a rule was proposed for the taking of guilty pleas. Another provision provided that this court “is authorized to propose changes in the rules of criminal procedures for consideration by the First Session of the Sixty-seventh Session of the General Assembly. . ” 1976 Session, 66th G.A., ch. 1245(4), § 530. A minority of our court at that time recommended that the rule be adopted as it now appears. A majority of the members of our court recommended that most of the detail of the rule be deleted. Because the general assembly adopted the words recommended by what was then the minority of the court it is now argued that the legislature was thereby subscribing to the judicial views held by those four justices.

I disagree. I think the rule should be taken on its face and applied as it is written. Legislative intent should be gathered from the clear language of an unambiguous statute, in this case an unambiguous rule, rather than from private opinions on the subject. We rejected as unpersuasive individual legislators’ opinions of legislative intent in Iowa State Ed. Ass’n v. PERB, 269 N.W.2d 446, 448 (Iowa 1978):

The legislative process is a complex one. A statute is often, perhaps generally, a consensus expression of conflicting private views. Those views are often subjective. A legislator can testify with authority only as to his own understanding of the words in question. What impelled another legislator to vote for the wording is apt to be unfathomable.

Accordingly we are usually unwilling to rely upon the interpretations of individual legislators for statutory meaning.

This unambiguous rule should be unaffected by the fact that the legislature rejected the request of a majority of our court that it desist entirely from specifying a procedure for guilty pleas. The procedure was indeed specified and it was specified in accordance with a request. But it should be applied as it is written and not necessarily as envisioned by those interested on either side of the question of whether a Sisco-Brainard litany should be imposed.

Turning to the rule it appears that there are three steps to be taken in satisfying the requirements of rule 8(2)(b). Two of the steps should require little or no discussion on these facts.

The trial court must address the defendant personally. This was done in the present case; the trial court addressed the defendant personally in open court and on the record. Secondly, the trial court is to determine that the plea is made voluntarily, *871 intelligently, has a factual basis, and that the defendant understands the legal matters listed in the rule. Notably, the rule does not require that this determination must be made exclusively on the basis of the dialogue between the judge and the accused.

Here the trial court obviously determined, as I would have, that the plea was made voluntarily and intelligently and had a factual basis. The trial court likewise obviously determined, as I would have, that the defendant understood all that he acknowledged he did in the written guilty plea.

The third step is that the trial court inform the defendant of those same legal matters. I think that, by integrating the written plea into the record as a part of the personal dialogue with the defendant, the trial court also substantially complied with this requirement. The written plea set out: (1) the charge itself; (2) the maximum and minimum penalties that could be imposed; (3) defendant’s trial rights; and (4) that the defendant would waive those rights by pleading guilty. In other words the defendant and his attorney, who both signed the plea, thereby recited, acknowledged, waived, and satisfied all the rule’s requirements. I think this is substantial compliance and all that the rule requires.

III. Use of a writing. Our whole system of law, from the statute of frauds to the statute of wills, is replete with rules that are grounded on the premise that the written word is more reliable than the spoken word. One might be rather perfunctory in signing a deed or in executing a will. But this is less likely than would be the case if such matters could be done orally. I see no reason to give written documents no credence or less credence than would be accorded an oral statement. And I see no reason that we should go out our way to do so in criminal matters.

Because the written plea here was acknowledged in open court I think it could be used, not in substitution for, but rather in connection with the rule 8(2)(b) procedure. Taken together I believe there was substantial compliance with all the requirements for taking guilty pleas under the record made in open court and the written plea. I would affirm.

REES and McGIVERIN, JJ., join this dissent.